CVE-2018-18520: Canonical Ubuntu Linux

Medium severity, CVSS 6.5. EPSS: 2.8% chance of exploitation in the next 30 days.

An Invalid Memory Address Dereference exists in the function elf_end in libelf in elfutils through v0.174. Although eu-size is intended to support ar files inside ar files, handle_ar in size.c closes the outer ar file before handling all inner entries. The vulnerability allows attackers to cause a denial of service (application crash) with a crafted ELF file.

Affected products

• Canonical Ubuntu Linux: version 16.04 only; version 18.04 only; version 18.10 only
• Debian Debian Linux: version 8.0 only; version 9.0 only
• Elfutils Project Elfutils: up to and including 0.174
• Opensuse Leap: version 15.0 only; version 15.1 only
• Red Hat Enterprise Linux Desktop: version 7.0 only
• Red Hat Enterprise Linux Server: version 7.0 only
• Red Hat Enterprise Linux Workstation: version 7.0 only

Published 2018-10-19. Last modified 2026-06-17.